Scholarships Abroad

World Bank : Papua New Guinea's ranking on ‘doing business’ drops

PAPUA New Guinea has dropped its ranking in terms of its regulations on people starting business and doing business in the country, according to the World Bank.

In the World Bank’s assessment of “Doing Business 2016”, Papua New Guinea dropped four places to 145.
It was ranked 141 out of the 189 world economies last year.
Under “Starting a Business”, PNG also dropped to 138 from last year’s ranking of 128.
International Finance Corporation Pacific senior operations officer Jonathon Kirkby told The National that the figures indicated that the Papua New Guinea Government should improve its business regulation.

“The Doing Business rankings are designed to compare business regulation in 189 different countries around the world,” he said. “The rankings allow a guide to how easy or how difficult the current regulation of business in each country makes it for businesses to start up, operate and grow, and if necessary eventually close down in an orderly way.”
Kirkby said the Doing Business rankings looked at 10 criteria, including:
Starting a business – the process of registering a business and getting all the necessary permits and licences for it to operate;
Getting electricity – the speed and ease with which electricity supply can be connected, and its reliability;

Registering property – the efficiency and security of buying and selling freehold land; Protecting minority investors – the strength of corporate governance, and whether government regulation protects minority investors in a company from conflicts of interest by directors;
Paying taxes – the amount of time and cost involved in calculating and then paying a company’s taxes.

“The Doing Business rankings do not show all the factors that are important in operating a business,” he said.
“Very important factors for business owners are things like macroeconomic stability, political stability, law and order, the quality of the workforce, distance from international markets and the size of the local market.
“Doing Business concentrates on a sub-set of the things that are directly within government control.”